Richard BF

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Subversion server (svnserve) on Mac OS X

Monday, 4^th August 2008 - 3:14am (AEST)

Permalink • # • Comments(13) • Categories: Apple computing, Programming/development

There's an absence of information on how to get a Subversion server running on Mac OS X, and what information there is on the web gives the impression that it's difficult. It's not.

I used to run an application called Mac SVN Server - MAS, a standalone app with Apache and a Subversion server all built in, by Uli Kusterer. You just run it and you have an instant web based svn server. But it's all packaged up, meaning it's not that easy to upgrade to new versions of svn, and is pretty heavy weight considering it's an entire Apache 2 web server.

Instead, contrary to what most web sites seem to say, you can just run svnserve, the Subversion custom server component with Mac OS X. Here's how I did it:

Download the Subversion package from Martin Ott's .mac page and install it on the Mac running 10.5 (Leopard) or later, that you're going to use as your Subversion server. This includes the svn client and the server. It's a standard Mac package installer, so just run it and you're done. All the binaries will end up in /usr/local/bin.
Create a new user called "svnuser".
Create a directory for your repository. Use mkdir /Users/svnuser/svn, or if you need to, use sudo mkdir /Users/svnuser/svn.
Create your repository. Use sudo svnadmin create /Users/svnuser/svn. Check the directory to make sure it has correct ownership for svnuser, and if not do a sudo chown -R /Users/svnuser/svn to set it correctly.
If you have a repository from another Subversion server then you can simply copy it over the top of the new directory, and it will work fine, so long as the repository version is supported. For Subversion 1.5, it will also support a 1.4 repository. I copied my old 1.4 repository from MAS, and it's worked perfectly. You may need to do another chown to make sure the ownership is correct.

The server is now installed. To run it, simply log in as svnuser and run the server with svnserve -d -r /Users/svnuser/svn. You can now access it from any client (1.4 is built into Mac OS X 10.5 so no need to install the client anywhere) by doing a standard svn check out: svn co svn://ipaddress-of-svnmac/repositorypath

But instead of running it manually, we can run it automatically when the server Mac starts up by using launchd. You can read up on Getting Started with launchd, but basically it's the new startup process in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). So, to start svnserve automatically, create the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.tigris.subversion.svnserve.plist, and put the following in it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <false/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>org.tigris.subversion.svnserve</string>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>svnuser</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/svnserve</string>
            <string>--inetd</string>
            <string>--root=/Users/svnuser/svn</string>
        </array>
        <key>ServiceDescription</key>
        <string>Subversion Standalone Server</string>
        <key>Sockets</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Listeners</key>
            <array>
                <dict>
                    <key>SockFamily</key>
                    <string>IPv4</string>
                    <key>SockServiceName</key>
                    <string>svn</string>
                    <key>SockType</key>
                    <string>stream</string>
                </dict>
                <dict>
                    <key>SockFamily</key>
                    <string>IPv6</string>
                    <key>SockServiceName</key>
                    <string>svn</string>
                    <key>SockType</key>
                    <string>stream</string>
                </dict>
            </array>
        </dict>
        <key>inetdCompatibility</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Wait</key>
            <false/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</plist>

This automatically starts the server when it boots. It also switches it from a standalone daemon to running under inetd, but it makes no real difference. There are a lot of different versions of this plist out there, but this is the only one I got to work. Unfortunately I can't remember the site I borrowed it from. Email me if it's you.

You're done.

Note that the UserName property defines the user to runs svnserve as, but launchd only allows this property when it is running as root. There are two launchds on the system, one running as root (process 1), and one running as each user. The one running as root loads its plists from /Library/LaunchDaemons.

Updated from comments over time.

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Comments

Please note that the following comments are posted without moderation by members of the public, and are not necessarily the opinion of this site.

Hi,

MAS is an open source project now. I have to admit I haven't worked on it much recently, as I use another VCS at the moment, but since it's open, others are welcome to help keep it current. The address is http://macsvnserver.sf.net

posted by Uli Kusterer at 3:22am on Monday, 11^th August 2008

Thanks Uli. Definitely a good option for folks wanting an http based Subversion server.

posted by Richard BF at 11:58am on Monday, 11^th August 2008

> Create your repository. Use sudo svnadmin create /Users/defaultuser/svn.
> Check the directory to make sure it has correct ownership for defaultuser,
> and if not do a sudo chown -R /Users/defaultuser/svn to set it correctly.

Who owned svnserve service?

posted by Vitold S at 6:03pm on Thursday, 18^th September 2008

thanks for that - couple of comments, I took the IPV6 line out, if you're not running it you don't need it. And this doesn't actually start the server when it boots, it spawns it on demand when something connects to the port and then drops it like a hot potato when you're done. If you are doing a lot of subversion stuff, you might want to run it in daemon mode so it stays up listening. The problem with that is it's not compatible with launchd, so you'd have to do i another way.

oh once you save the file, run the following to get started without having to reboot

launchctl
load org.tigris.subversion.svnserve
start org.tigris.subversion.svnserve
<ctrl-D> to get out of launchctl

posted by rols at 11:13am on Saturday, 20^th September 2008

This was very helpful for me, thanks! I went straight to the launchd-based mechanism, used rols's helpful notes (removed IPV6). I further simplified by not creating a separate user, but just putting the repository in /svn.

A small note on rols's helpful data: I had to type:

launchctl
load org.tigris.subversion.svnserve.plist
start org.tigris.subversion.svnserve
<ctrl-D> to get out of launchctl

posted by kcrca at 9:37am on Thursday, 13^th November 2008

Worked, even with svn repository on external usb volume and auto-login disabled. Thanks.

posted by phn at 9:28am on Sunday, 30^th November 2008

Hi,

just stopped by to tell you that you are currently being blocked by google. Something about mal / badware is mentioned.

A great article by the way !

Greetings,
Marc

posted by Marc Essinger at 1:43am on Sunday, 1^st February 2009

Don't worry Marc, it's a worldwide Google glitch.

posted by Richard BF at 11:34am on Sunday, 1^st February 2009

Thanks alot, great one-time tutorial!

posted by Danz at 11:45am on Thursday, 5^th March 2009

I have used a similar approach but with a dedicated user "svn".
As a consequences that org.tigris.subversion.svnserve.plist should go into /Library/LaunchDaemons, so it will be started even if no user svn is logged in. Furthermore the following lines have to be added to the .plist file:

<key>UserName</key>
<string>svn</string>

This is especially true if you use VileVault for your user accounts.

posted by Daniel Schnell at 0:52am on Monday, 16^th March 2009

Thx for the launchD tip, only worked for me by referencing the plist as an absolute path. Kinda weird.

Like so:
launchd% load /Library/LaunchAgents/org.tigris.subversion.svnserve.plist
launchd% start org.tigris.subversion.svnserve

posted by nikster at 5:12pm on Tuesday, 19^th May 2009

When svnserve is started-up by launchd, what user is it running under? I got everything running fine, except that the svn server gets authorization errors accessing it's own repository's db directory. I had to set permissions to 666 for files and 777 for directories for check-ins to work.

Of course I'd like to set it up right.

BTW, I am the default user (and so I did the obvious substitutions in the launchd config file in the tutorial, and I have sudo privileges, which I used when creating the repository, and the files and directories were created under my user name.

posted by mcpublic at 6:47am on Thursday, 28^th May 2009

Inetd mode isn't needed. This is what I'm using (yes, using both --foreground and --daemon is correct):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>org.tigris.subversion.svnserve</string>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>defaultuser</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/opt/local/bin/svnserve</string>
<string>--foreground</string>
<string>--daemon</string>
<string>--root=/Users/defaultuser/svn</string>
</array>
<key>ServiceDescription</key>
<string>Subversion Standalone Server</string>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

posted by frank Riley at 8:06am on Sunday, 20^th September 2009

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Subversion server (svnserve) on Mac OS X

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